


Heaven Can't Wait (but Castiel can)

by thebisexualbanshee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, Headcanon, M/M, Supernatural - Freeform, castiel - Freeform, heavencantwait
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 12:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8206291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebisexualbanshee/pseuds/thebisexualbanshee
Summary: Castiel confronts the many realities of being human--hunger, exhaustion, and a set of pesky stomach-butterflies.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet takes place in the last 4 minutes of season 9, episode 6, “Heaven Can’t Wait.” A brief summary/reminder of that episode: Dean leaves Sam (who is possessed by Gadreel, who is pretending to be Ezekiel) at the bunker with Kevin and Crowley while he goes to investigate exploding people near where Castiel is currently living. Castiel, now human, works at a gas station and believes he has a date with his boss, which Dean helps him prepare for. The date turns out to be babysitting, and the angel Ephraim finds Castiel there. After he and Dean fight the angel off, Castiel leaves the date and gets into the Impala with Dean. The next morning, Dean drops Castiel off at work and heads home. This ficlet explores the space between Castiel getting into the car with Dean at night and getting out of it the next morning. What did happen that night? 
> 
> Note: I borrow small bits of dialogue from the episode.

“Where to, Cas?” Dean asks Cas as the former angel approaches the Impala.  
  
Cas doesn’t answer. Not verbally, anyway. But the look he gives Dean—the browbeaten, crestfallen sigh of resignation—is apparently answer enough. Dean’s typically stoic face softens, as it often does around the blue-eyed man.  
  
“C’mon,” Dean prods, wrenching open the Impala’s driver-side door. “You gotta be hungry.”  
  
Castiel gets into the passenger seat, exhaling into the old leather. He tries to become one with it; tries to melt himself into the Impala’s grey upholstery. Instead, he simply offers, “I am. Thank you, Dean.”  
  
“Hey, don’t mention it,” Dean answers, his typical, cheeky grin restored as the Impala roars to life. “Being human’s tough. Now let’s go clog those virgin arteries, huh?”  
  
Cas can’t help but smile at that.  
  
***  
  
Dean drives around for nearly an hour looking for a White Castle, remembering that Cas had liked those burgers that one time a while back. When they can’t find one, and he finally relegates himself to checking the GPS on his phone, they discover the nearest one is hours away.  
  
“Do you wanna go?” Dean asks, peering over at Castiel while they wait out a stoplight. “I don’t mind the drive.”  
  
“No, Dean—thank you. But I have to work in the morning. And I’m…” Cas scrunches his face, the former angel finishing the sentence bitterly, “…tired. I’m exhausted.”  
  
Dean’s own features knit with concern, but only briefly, and he clears his throat and looks back to the road. “Right. Of course. I think we passed a Biggerson’s a couple miles back. You good with that? Ain’t much, but it’s food.”  
  
“I’m good with it,” Castiel answers gruffly, awkwardly testing out a more Dean-like vernacular. Colloquialisms, he thinks, are one of the harder parts of adjusting to humanity. But Dean’s a good teacher, even if he doesn’t know it.  
  
Dean does know it, though. Castiel’s attempts aren’t lost on him, and as he whips the Impala around and speeds back the other way, a grin barely quirks the corner of his mouth.  
  
When they make it to Biggerson’s, the neon OPEN sign is just flickering off as the last red-shirted employee heads for the door.  
  
“Damn it,” Dean huffs, idling in the gravel lot. “I’m sorry, man. We’ll find somewhere else.”  
  
“It’s not necessary, I’ll just—” Cas begins, but Dean won’t hear it.  
  
“Hell nah, we’re getting you some grub,” he says, throttling the Impala forwards again. “I got an idea.”  
  
Castiel’s mouth opens in protest, but he closes it without speaking. Instead, he watches Dean through narrowed eyes. The hunter couldn’t look less concerned with Cas’s ire, he notices. In fact, he looks…pleased? It doesn’t take long for Cas to figure out why.  
  
Minutes later, Dean screeches the car to a halt in the dim parking lot of a sketchy-looking roadhouse bar. “Dean…” Cas begins to protest, but that’s all he manages to say. Dean has already cut the engine and is pulling himself out of the Impala and into the chilly night air.  
  
“C’mon, I won’t let ya get too drunk,” Dean winks—a gesture that makes Castiel’s stomach fill with insects. _Butterflies, they call it_ , he remembers, and his legs are moving of their own volition, following Dean across the lot.  
  
“I have work tomorrow,” he repeats, though he doesn’t really mean it anymore.  
  
***  
  
The bar is dark, and packed with bikers, and so smoky it makes Cas cough within moments of entering. Dean motions over his head, maneuvering deftly through the sea of burly men to a small table in the far corner, past the pool tables, just big enough for two. Cas has watched Dean do this a hundred times before, but the ease with which he navigates the chaos is impressive to his new human sensibilities. Again, he reminds himself that Dean’s a good teacher.  
  
A curvy blonde is at their table in a shockingly short amount of time—Cas remembers that Dean tends to have that effect on women—and Dean gives her a smile that Cas thinks is probably giving her the butterflies as well.  
  
“What can I get you boys?” she asks, though her attention remains mostly on the Winchester.  
  
“Four shots of your cheapest whiskey, some of those heart-attack chili-cheese fries, and a couple beers,” Dean answers, drawing a disdainful headshake from Cas.  
  
“Dean, I can’t—“  
  
“Be right back with that,” the waitress says, and winks at Dean before she disappears. Castiel lets out a sigh. The butterflies are almost gone; he can be irritated with Dean again.  
  
“I know, you have work,” Dean says, rolling his eyes. He leans across the table and flashes Cas the same smile he gave the pretty waitress. The butterflies start flapping again. “You’ll make it. But hangovers are a human rite of passage. What kind of friend would I be if I denied you that?”  
  
Cas tries to talk around the butterflies, but it feels like one is trying to flap up his throat. He ends up stammering meaningless, guttural syllables. It’s only when the waitress arrives with a tray of nothing but alcohol that he manages, to her, not Dean, “I’d like a glass of water, please.”  
  
“Sure. I’ll be back in a few with your fries,” the waitress says as she departs. Cas notices that her v-neck tee seems to be exposing more cleavage than it was before.  
  
Dean rolls his eyes, but doesn’t press it. “Fine, more for me,” he quips. He pulls all four of the shots to himself and immediately downs two. As promised, the waitress returns with the fries. She sets them in front of Dean, who pushes them toward Cas, snagging and swigging from a beer.  
  
“Are you not eating?” Cas wonders.  
  
“Nah, not hungry,” Dean replies. He drinks his first beer too quickly.  
  
Six more shots and three more beers later, Dean is far too drunk to drive, and it’s up to Castiel to get them to a hotel. He does his best to act like Sam and Dean—to do what they’d do—and manages to convince a desk clerk at a roach motel to believe his name is really Antonio Wozniack, like it said on one of the credit cards in Dean’s wallet. He even remembers to ask for two beds. The butterflies are quiet now as he mostly drags Dean into their room.  
  
“Ooookay, down you go,” Cas sighs as he lowers Dean onto the nearest bed. The hunter goes down easily enough, and Cas is about to head to the bathroom to wash up when he hears his friend groan.  
  
“Cas, wait a—c’mere,” Dean slurs.  
  
“What is it?” Cas starts, returning to the side of the bed. “Do you need to vomit?”  
  
Before he knows what’s happening, Dean’s hand is clamped around his wrist, pulling him down onto the bed beside him with a drunken belly-laugh. “Nah, just c’mere,” the Winchester answers. “Stay with me a minute.”  
  
The butterflies are back, and they’re winning. Against his better judgement, Castiel eases back to lie down on his side next to Dean. The hunter’s eyes are closed, but his lips still wear a smile. Cas props himself on an elbow and watches. _He probably won’t remember any of this in the morning,_ Cas thinks. _That doesn’t make it a good idea._ But the butterflies are still winning, and Castiel is human, and humans make mistakes, so instead of staying silent, Cas quietly answers, “More than a minute, Dean. I’ll stay with you always.”  
  
Dean’s eyes flicker open to look over toward the former angel. They’re still swimming, and bloodshot with whiskey, but Cas knows Dean heard him. He’s expecting admonishment; the butterflies are nesting in his chest and dying there. _Why did I say anything? Dean will never--_  
  
“Promise me?” Dean slurs, a near whisper, interrupting Cas mid-thought.  
  
Cas wishes the butterflies had just stayed in his stomach; at least there, they could be controlled. But the ones in his chest, the ones he thought were dead, leap back to life, and there’s nothing he can do to fight them. They all scramble at once to come up his throat; he can feel their wings beating against his lips, fluttering so madly behind his teeth that he feels like if he doesn’t do something, they’ll make him burst.  
  
“I promise you,” Cas whispers back, and the butterflies spill over. They carry his hand to the side of Dean’s face to draw his knuckles down the hunter’s cheekbone, trace his eyebrow and brush through his hair with calloused fingertips. They fill his head, making it so heavy that Cas has no choice but to lean down and trace the bridge of Dean’s nose with the tip of his own. They pour out of his mouth and convince him the only way he’ll breathe again is if he gives them over to the green-eyed hunter, so Castiel closes the gap and presses his parted lips to Dean’s. When Dean breathes back into Cas’s mouth, he loses control, kissing the hunter over and over and over.  
  
***  
  
Castiel doesn’t remember falling asleep. But when he wakes up beside the still-snoozing hunter—both still fully clothed, even down to the shoes—the butterflies are still in his chest. The clock on the side table blares, in bright red numbers, 7:07 AM. Carefully, quietly, Cas leans in and breathes in the scent of Dean’s hair, brushes against his lips once more, and heads for the bathroom. When he emerges a half hour later, showered and put together, Dean is sitting up on the edge of the bed, shaking ibuprofen into his hand. Cas freezes in the bathroom doorway, watching.  
  
“I thought you were the one supposed to be hungover,” Dean groans, dry-swallowing the pills. He stares over at Cas for a moment, expression unreadable through the headache he undoubtedly has. “You uhh… gotta work, huh?”  
  
“At eight, yes,” Cas says, swallowing a butterfly. He hazards a quiet, “Do you remember anything? From last night?”  
  
“I don’t remember leaving the bar,” Dean admits, rubbing a hand through his hair. “Thanks for driving, by the way. I remember you dragging my sorry ass in here, and I remember you—” Castiel’s stomach climbs into his throat and he can feel the color rising in his cheeks as he watches Dean’s expression cycle through confusion, fear, and finally back into stoicism. “Nah, nevermind. That was a dream,” he dismisses, clearing his throat and rising. “C’mon. Let’s get you to work.”  
  
Castiel follows Dean out to the car. The whole way to the gas station, he is silent. Dean is the one who finally breaks the quiet as they arrive.  
  
“Listen, Cas, uhm…back at the Bunker, I uhh…sorry I told you to go,” Dean mumbles, shutting off the engine. “I know it’s been hard on you, you know, on your own. Somehow you’re adapting. I’m proud of you.”  
  
“Thank you, Dean,” is all Cas manages to squeeze out past the butterflies pressing against his tongue.  
  
And then he manages more. “But there’s something Ephraim said…” he begins, forcing himself into normalcy. Forcing back the butterflies. Forcing himself to talk about the angels, and Heaven, and anything other than the night the hunter doesn’t remember as more than a dream.  
  
Castiel gets out of the Impala. He tries not to look at the green-eyed man who’s about to drive away without him. In his mind, he whispers to the butterflies; he begs them not to worry. He says they’ll just have to wait.


End file.
